Southall Rail Crash - Aftermath

Aftermath

Following this accident and the Ladbroke Grove rail crash, the train operating company First Great Western now requires all its HST trains to have ATP switched on (if the equipment is faulty the train is taken out of service).

The passenger train driver, Larry Harrison, was initially charged with manslaughter, but the case was dropped. His employer, Great Western Trains, was fined £1.5 million for not having a system to ensure high speed trains were not operated for long journeys with AWS inoperative.

The action of the signalman in giving the freight train precedence over the HST with the faulty AWS has been criticised. However, this was a perfectly standard and safe manoeuvre, in order to regulate the passage of trains to minimise overall delay; the signaller was not and would not have been required to be aware that the HST's AWS was switched off and would have no expectation that the driver of the passenger train would ignore the signals indicating he should stop. The key point, as identified in the report, was that drivers had become increasingly reliant on AWS with single-manning and high speeds and that it was no longer acceptable to run trains at full speed if the equipment was inoperative. Operating rules were changed accordingly.

Power car 43173 was written off and scrapped at Pig's Bay, having sustained heavy damage during the accident.